Coclé Polychrome Bowl

Fine Arts of Ancient Lands, New York

Lin and Emile Deletaille, Brussels, acquired from the above in 1979

Thence by descent

The shallow ring-based bowl is painted in brilliant colors with a highly animated shamanic figure with the profile body facing right with wide open mouth, large clawed appendages and a massive tail trimmed by serpentine serrations that encircle the rim. The Conte style is known for building upon the designs of the earlier Tonosi style, but brings a new dynamism and kinetic element to the iconography.  

See Armand J. Labbé, Guardians of the Lifestream, Shamans, Art and Power in Prehispanic Central Panama, Bowers Museum of Cultural Art Santa Ana, 1995, p. 38, fig. 33 for a similar example and p. 64, table 2, e, f.